WIRED Awake: 10 must-read articles for 27 May

Your WIRED UK daily briefing. Today, a US court has ruled that Google's use of Java APIs in Android falls under 'fair use' in copyright law, Reddit has reset 100,000 account passwords after a spike in malicious takeovers, Nasa has delayed its inflation of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module on the ISS and more.

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A US federal court has found that Google's use of Java APIs in its Android mobile operating system falls under US law's 'fair use' criteria and thus does not constitute an infringement of Java owner Oracle's copyright (Ars Technica). The verdict follows a two-week trial, but Oracle has said that it will appeal and continues to argue that Java's open source licence does not extend to Google's use of the APIs. Oracle bought Java, along with parent company Sun Microsystems, in 2010, two years after Android's initial release and first took Google to court over the APIs in 2012, when a judge ruled that APIs couldn't be copyrighted: a verdict that was later overturned on appeal.

Reddit has announced that it's reset the passwords on 100,000 accounts following what it describes as a "general uptick" in malicious account takeovers (Motherboard). Reddit’s founding engineer Christopher Slowe attributes the increase in malicious activity to recent mass password dumps, such as 100 million LinkedIn logins dating from 2012. Slowe notes that "though Reddit itself has not been exploited, even the best security in the world won't work when users are reusing passwords between sites." Inactive Reddit accounts whose users don't respond to the password reset request within a month will be deleted.

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Nasa has delayed an attempt to deploy the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) on the International Space Station following unexpected results when the team began the inflation process (WIRED). The BEAM is a flexible tent comprising metal bulkheads and fabric walls, and is supposed to expand from furled dimensions of 2.16 metres long and 2.36 metres in diameter to a size of 4.01 metres long and 3.23 metres in diameter when pressurised. However, during yesterday's expansion attempt, only its width increased. The attempt has been put off for a day while engineers troubleshoot the problem.

In a non-binding resolution, Members of the European Parliament have urged the European Commission to tighten the proposed EU-US Privacy Shield data sharing and protection framework (Ars Technica). Privacy Shield is the proposed replacement to the former Safe Harbour framework for data protection, which collapsed last year after revelations that US government agencies had access to the personal data of private EU citizens stored on US servers. The Privacy Shield has been criticised by MEPs for "deficiencies" in the protections its current text offers, as it fails to address what access US authorities can have to data, allows bulk data collection in "exceptional circumstances" and proposes an overly complex system for complaints and redress which may lack sufficient independence to be effective.

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Greek archaeologists say that they have found what is likely to be the lost tomb of Aristotle, the ancient authority on science, logic and philosophy whose work shaped research and theory for millennia to come (The Guardian). Kostas Sismanidis says of the 2,400-year-old domed tomb in Stagira in the Macedonian region of northern Greece, where Aristotle was born in 384 BCE: "I have no hard proof, but strong indications lead me to almost certainty." Sismanidis says that the location and description of the tomb match ancient accounts.

Facebook and Microsoft have announced that they're entering a partnership to build a new 6,600 kilometre subsea fibreoptic cable between Northern Virginia in the United States and Bilbao in Spain (ZDnet). Named MAERA, the cable will be the highest-capacity span yet to cross the Atlantic, with eight fibre pairs and a design capacity of 160Tbps. It'll be managed by Telxius, a new subsidiary of Spanish telecoms firm Telefónica. Although not mentioned in the announcement, some sources speculate that the cable may effectively avoid plans by the USA's National Security Agency to intercept international traffic between the data centres of firms such as Microsoft.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the University of Liège in Belgium have devised a new test that can identify the likelihood that a comatose person will recover awareness within a year (Eurekalert). The team measured the cerebral glucose levels of 131 patients with brain injuries, who were all suffering from full or partial loss of consciousness. They found that the patients' level of responsiveness were strongly linked to brain glucose levels and that those whose glucose metabolism was below 42 per cent of normal were fully unconscious and remained so at a one-year follow-up. Co-author Ron Kupers says that "the discovery of a clear metabolic boundary between the conscious and unconscious states could imply that the brain undergoes a fundamental state change at a certain level of energy turnover, in a sense that consciousness 'ignites' as brain activity reaches a certain threshold."

Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos has announced that the private spaceflight company's next test of its reusable New Shepard rocket will also see a crash-landing test of the crew capsule that sits atop the rocket (The Verge). In an email update, Bezos writes that "on this upcoming mission we also plan to stress the crew capsule by landing with an intentionally failed parachute, demonstrating our ability to safely handle that failure scenario." Blue origin hopes to be sending tourists to space using New Shepard and the same crew capsule design by 2018.

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Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer has revealed that the company "could see doing five or six or seven" new Power Rangers films (Variety). Feltheimer says that audiences responded positively to the recent costume reveal and that the studio is "really, really excited about the 'Power Rangers' movie." The first of the new films is due out on March 24, 2017, starring Becky G as the Yellow Ranger, Ludi Lin as the Black Ranger, Naomi Scott as the Pink Ranger, Dacre Montgomery as the Red Ranger, RJ Cyler as the Blue Ranger and Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa.

The latest trailer for Square Enix's forthcoming game, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, doesn't show any gameplay footage but instead presents a chilling look at the game's setting ([link URL="http://www.popsci.com/new-deus-ex-trailer-is-scary-dystopian-movie"]Popular Science[/link]). The four-minute short, The Mechanical Apartheid, shows growing conflict, oppression and fear surrounding mechanically augmented individuals and makes for compelling viewing. The game is out for Xbox One, PS4 and PC on August 23.

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Electronic Arts is betting big on its resurgent Mirror's Edge franchise with a live action television series in the works. The show will be produced by Endemol Shine Studios. While the name may be most recognisable to British viewers as the company behind reality show Big Brother, Mirror's Edge will be handled by its scripted series wing, responsible for dramas such as Kingdom and Hell on Wheels. The Mirror's Edge games follow Faith, an undercover rooftop courier known as a Runner. Played first-person, Faith uses parkour skills to navigate an oppressive, corporate-run dystopian future state. It's likely the TV series will mirror this, although there are no confirmed details on cast, setting, or any changes that may be made in switching medium. Hollywood trade site Deadline currently only describes the series as being "a female-centred action series".

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